


habits of my heart

by a_simple_space_nerd



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: Child Abuse, F/F, F/M, Gen, I guess its gay??, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isle of the Lost (Disney), My First Work in This Fandom, Wow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 05:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11616765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_simple_space_nerd/pseuds/a_simple_space_nerd
Summary: No one will ever know, (no one but them,) what they are to each other, what they do in the shadows, what they whisper against earlobes and jawlines, what they communicate with the eyes inherited from their mothers. Blue and purple have always been a matching set.





	habits of my heart

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't seen d2 yet so pls be kind if there are mistakes,,

“What is Uma, to you?” 

 

* * *

 

Mal’d first seen her, really seen her, when she was hooking up with Harry. Through the haze of fog and the ever-present stench of things dying and things already dead, under the moonlight and with Harry’s lips on hers and her fingers tangled in her hair she’d thought _who’s that, who’s she, ~~I want her~~_. She’d ended it between her and Harry a week later, not really knowing why.

 

* * *

 

Uma’s ocean-eyes had stayed with her until they next bumped into each other, each alone, (planned or not they’ll never know) in a back-alley and Uma smiles at her the way a shark does.

“Mal,” she purrs, silky smooth, and Mal’s lips twitch to one side, secrets in her eyes. Everyone knows Mal, here, whether they come from the docks or markets or anywhere else. (Was it a coincidence, their meeting, only they will ever know.)

“Uma,” she greets, cold and distant and enticing and in this moment, they are as much their parents as they are themselves.

 

* * *

 

They grew up on different sides on the same island, Uma to the docks and Mal to the markets. Mal has the thugs and Uma has the wharf-rats and they are not allies. The gangs have been fighting forever and it’s angry and bitter and—even with that, the island wasn’t big enough for these forces of nature masquerading as girls to avoid each other forever.

Together, they rule their whole world. The gangs have a period of peace, a time of calm, and the two girls with sharp smiles are the ones to show them that even here, on the island of lost futures, compromise can exist without submission. No one will ever know, (no one but them,) what they are to each other, what they do in the shadows, what they whisper against earlobes and jawlines, what they communicate with the eyes inherited from their mothers. Blue and purple have always been a matching set, after all.  

 

* * *

 

They hover too close to each other. Bump shoulders, trade smirks, link their pinkies together. Kisses landing just on the corner of their smiles. Slinking through the shadows, not hand-in-hand but side-to-side and lingering in the distances they’d never before dared to cross. Laughter soft in the recesses of the dangerous harbours or under the ramshackle roofs in the marketplace.

Never holding hands, never, never, but bodies pressed against each other and aligned with the shadows of their home. Cackles in sync, back-to-back and arm-against-arm, never visibly something more but somehow something so much _more_. Smirks just a smidge softer than they are to others. Slinking beside each other through the recesses of their worlds, slipping between the cracks of what they’ve known to be reality.

Evie watches them, sometimes, with something like confusion, something like envy, because this may not be love but it is something, and it is tantalizing and the whispers of what-may-be are as alluring as the girls themselves. Jay worries (quietly, quietly,) because his loyalty is to Mal and always will be (never admitted, never said aloud,) and he worries even though nothing-is-for-certain, nothing-is-confirmed, though he covers it with smirks and nudges until Mal sends him a look that says _stop_ and says _leave it_ and he may not be a mastermind like Evie is but he knows that whatever they have is precious and is rare and would be far too easy to tear apart. Carlos, still newest to the group in a way of sorts, says nothing but hopes, for them, that they’ll be okay, that whatever they have won't be so easily tainted by the poison from which they sprang from. 

They lead opposing gangs. It should never have worked.

 

* * *

 

Some of Uma’s rations go missing, stolen from the barge before her men could arrive, gone in mere seconds, and it’s not directly Mal’s fault, but it is. Nothing about Mal is innocent. 

Uma comes to her snarling, spitting, and Mal knows this can be smoothed over so she doesn’t lash out, doesn’t send whispers running throughout the markets in a call for aid. She lets Uma rage, lets her threaten, dodges the hits but doesn’t retaliate as she might have for someone else.

She heads home with a limp and an aching jaw but they’ll be okay, she knows, she knows. (She forgets, on the island, never to take anything for granted.)

 

* * *

 

Mal creeps through the silence of her house, just a sliver of light from underneath the front door, she’s almost there, almost there, almost— a clawed hand darts out and Mal chokes as Maleficent emerges from the shadows as a vengeful wraith, hands curled tightly around the girl’s throat, slamming her against the wall.

“Fighting, Mal,” she sneers, tilting Mal’s face towards the light to observe the bruising that decorates her daughter’s cheekbones. “ _Losing_ , Mal,” she snarls, shoving her against the wall again, nails digging into Mal’s skin as Mal’s hands pull uselessly at Maleficent’s grip. “I’m so disappointed.” Her lips curl distastefully as Mal gurgles and coughs. 

“It won’t happen again,” Mal manages to wheeze, clawing at the hands bruising her throat, toes just above the ground, swinging helplessly. Black dots cloud her vision. “I’ll fix it.”

Maleficent bares her teeth in what might be a smile, might be something worse. “Yes,” she agrees, smiles slipping as the threat hangs in the air, “you will.” She drops Mal with a contemptuous pull of her lips and vanishes away into the shadows of the lonely house the two faes share, leaving her daughter gasping on the ground, massaging her neck with one hand and pushing herself off the floor with the other.

 

* * *

 

“I thought you said you wanted the gangs to remain amicable, to leave it.” Carlos’ voice is uncertain.

“I _know_ —” Mal closes her eyes and takes a breath. “What I said. I’m saying something different now.” Carlos’ eyes are wary but he backs down, and Mal restrains the urge to heave out a sigh, her voice raspy enough as it is.

Jay, leaning against the wall of the pipe they converge in, arms folded loosely over his chest, catches Mal’s eyes for just a moment. The briefest of nods. She’s glad, to have him. She doesn’t doubt he will follow her where she leads, wherever that may be. Friends don’t exist, on the island, but Jay is a good ally to have. 

Evie, between Carlos and Mal and completing the lopsided circle, rolls her shoulders and steels herself. “All right,” she says, and steps forward to pull at Mal’s collar, ignoring Mal’s warning growl and the way she steps back.

“Oh, Mal,” Evie sighs under her breath, having exposed the angry, dark bruises ringing her throat.

Mal bats her hand away, having allowed her this moment of (weak, weak,) worry. “Are you with me, or not?” It’s not a question, anymore. It never really was, but now it’s for different reasons. It’s not a question.

Jay pushes himself off the wall and nods once, firmly, without hesitation. Evie hums in agreement and Carlos sends Mal a resigned half-smile. “We’re with you,” he replies. Of course they are. It’s not a question, not for them.

 

* * *

 

“Mal,” greets Uma. Her voice is warm, silky smooth, unsuspecting.

“Uma.” Cold, cruel, ruthless. Vicious, evil, _maleficent_.

Jay stands sturdy just behind her and to her left, her general, as he always is, as he always will be. The shards of blades she knows he carries have yet to be revealed. Evie to the other side, hands on her hips, head tilted forward, not back. This is not her challenge but it is her fight. Carlos barely a breath away, still and silent, eyes hard, shoulders low but tense.

She can see the exact moment realisation sets in, the exact moment the hurt (weak, weak) flashes in Uma’s ocean-eyes, the way they shutter and harden, almost sad, almost angry.

“So that’s the way it is,” she says eventually, slowly, and Mal tilts her head just so. Just enough so that if Uma is looking, if she only _looked_ , the necklace of bruises will show, the not-explanation will be heard. (Uma doesn’t look. Or maybe she does. Only she will ever know.)

“I’ve been hearing things,” Mal answers, “The streets have been whispering. Smelling shrimpy.” Uma hardens. Don’t ever threaten the crew, rule one. Broken. Don’t disrespect her heritage, rule two. Broken.  

Well. Here is Mal’s (unspoken, of course unspoken) rule: what happens between us stays between us.  Broken, broken, broken.

“Alright,” Uma says, unsheathing her sword, and Mal’s expression doesn’t shift. “You’ll get what you came for.”

 

* * *

 

They never should have worked, and they didn’t, eventually. Mal overstepped a boundary, Mal held back when Uma fought back, Uma crossed a line, Mal destroyed and humiliated her. They were two hurricanes on a tiny island in even tinier alleyways and lurking in the shadows where they came from and no one will ever know (no one but them) what they were or what they weren’t.

 

* * *

 

Mal avoids the docks. Uma stays away from the markets. This is the island of the cruel, of the broken, of the merciless, and so they are not careful, are not gentle, but maybe they try. Maybe: Uma never again sends her fish whispering throughout the slums of their home. Maybe: Mal will learn that what she has is enough, sometimes, that what others have does not need to be hers. Maybe: when the gangs meet they will not hide from each other but they won’t look for confrontation. Maybe: they try. 

 

* * *

 

“What is Uma, to you?”

Mal doesn’t falter, doesn’t blink. “What does it matter?”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> pls review friends :)


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